In her review of the anthology, Love and Lust in Singapore, in the Her World magazine, Niki Bruce observes:The overall quality of the stories reflects the authors various backgrounds and cultural mores; you can tell who are the ex-journos and who are the poets from their differing writing styles.
As a collection, however, Love and Lust in Singapore is a little uneven. There are some quality pieces of writing but others are, at best, self-indulgent and at worst, puerile.
A topic like love and lust is something that unfortunately lends itself to excess. What is most off-putting is a rather colonialist thread running through a number of the stories written by the non-natives or ‘expats’.
Niki has this to say about my story in the anthology:
Zafar Anjum’s A Fraction of a Whore looks at the other end of the spectrum; an Indian import lies beside a whore worrying about how his parents would react if they knew how ruined his ‘golden future’ had become. But it’s the actions of the ‘whore’, showing simple humanity, that drag him from the edge of suicide.
That is a nice summary of my story but I am not sure if Niki likes it. I hope she does not consider it self-indulgent or puerile. Have you read it? What do you think about it?
My favourite stories in the collection are Dad Jeans and It's a Wonderful Like. Other stories in the anthology are quite enjoyable too.
